


Untouchable

by second-wings (eigwayne)



Series: The Collected Works of Sunglasses-in-Space-Zala [9]
Category: Gundam SEED, Gundam SEED Astray
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Mentions of other characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eigwayne/pseuds/second-wings
Summary: Athrun once played for the incomparable Lacus Clyne, but the nostalgia of the past is lost in the fire of battle. All PLANT has put aside their softer feelings until the war is won. And Athrun's not the only one who finds a new inspiration.When the song of peace fails, another songstress sings the song of victory.(Idol AU with a semi(?)-canon setting, featuring Shiho Hahnenfuss from Astray as the idol.)
Series: The Collected Works of Sunglasses-in-Space-Zala [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/636278





	Untouchable

**Author's Note:**

> Another cross-posting of an old prompt reply on my Athrun RP blog. The prompt was "A Star is Born - your character becomes extremely famous, and my character watches their rise to fame from the sidelines."  
> I love me some Idol AUs, so I ran with it. There's some romantic Yzak/Shiho as a plot point but the POV and focus is Athrun, actually.  
> Originally posted April 5, 2013 (https://sunglasses-in-space-zala.tumblr.com/post/47234550434/a-star-is-born-for-shiho)

I was only a studio musician. Sure, I played with Lacus Clyne- on her album. We never even met. I played the guitar for her alone in a sound booth, a soft acoustic piece, and I felt my heart clench when I heard it on the radio for the first time with her voice. I heard her voice and wanted to fall in love with her. That was her way, Lacus Clyne. Her songs were a direct hit to the gut, in a sorrowful, nostalgic way, and just the sound of her voice was enough to make you love her. Then she retired suddenly. She was only twenty, I was only twenty, and war was looming.

You reminded me of her at first. A sweet voice; slow, sad songs; a quiet stage presence. An aura of etherealness like the plant whose name you bear, the untouchable Housenka, the Touch-me-not balsam. I wasn’t surprised to learn you were a fan of Lacus. I played on your first solo single, you know, and our work echoed like a memory of her. People said, “That Housenka, she’s a dream of Lacus Clyne.”

But your songs are filled with hope. Not the way hers were, with the silent strength and the wishing for better times. Your voice is clear and strong. Your songs resonate with the hope of someone who fights, earlier, harder, longer, for what they believe. It echoes with the people of PLANT, when we were fighting. They tell you in an interview that the soldiers call out, ‘For PLANT! For Housenka!’ and you always make this sweet, flattered, embarrassed face.

I play the guitar one last time for you on 'Desert of Time’, for the unplugged remix on the single, and join the military.

Your songs gain a harder edge. Some say it’s because the one you love went away to war. Even if I had stayed a civilian, you wouldn’t need me anymore; my playing style is classical, cascading arpeggios and finger-picking, and this new edge to your songs does not need that gentleness I play with. When we are about to leave for the frontlines, I stumble on you and your rumored lover during a visit that’s supposed to be secret from the press and your fans, and Yzak- the closest thing to a rival I will ever have, cold and passionate at the same time, a perfect foil for you with your warm and calm demeanor- he swears me to secrecy with threats of violence.

I don’t want your songs to become mournful, so I swear secrecy and vow to protect him so you never have to cry. He sputters and says he doesn’t need protecting, don’t be an idiot. We’re almost friends after that, he and I.

When Lacus Clyne suddenly appears, singing a song of peace, your eyes grow hard and I fall out of love with her, if I ever had loved her. She was an ideal of peace and beauty in life, and perhaps I was not the only one who loved that, and could not see the woman. We don’t identify with her anymore, those of us who fight. Her world is full of goodness, but we have all seen too much blood. Even you; her re-emergence comes after you visited us on the front lines. The attack was against every protocol of modern war, an assault on the base during a supposed respite. There used to be an agreement not to attack during celebrity tours and agreed-upon holidays (almost the entire month of December is an unofficial break in the fighting, so people can celebrate the holidays even if they can’t go home. It’s part of 'civilized’ warfare). They violated that, tried to cut down the Touch-me-not, and later the PLANTs responded with rage.

The rescue itself was heroically tragic, the kind that the media loves because they get a tale of bravery and loss, and a death toll to report, all in one. You apologized to us, and no one held a grudge for our shameful retreat, but Rusty and Nicol are dead, and Yzak’s pretty face is scarred, and I will never use my right arm again. Nicol had played piano for you for a while before he enlisted, on stage with a grand piano and you in a red dress, and his loss cuts through both you and my team. 

There is anger in your songs now, a fierce determination to end the war- not with concessions, as the songs of peace would surely force us into, but with victory and justice. These songs… they’re the songs of the fighters. The war will end, the war will end when we win and justice is had. Don’t bow down, don’t forget. 

It is not time for the song of peace, Lacus. Not yet. Forgiveness must be earned. Justice is not free.

I reject the offer of discharge due to my injury. I will never play guitar again, but neither will Nicol play piano, and unlike him I am still able to run a comm unit. I am on the bridge when your concert is broadcast to the fleet, singing the song of victory. The troops love you. They still call out your stage name, “Housenka! Housenka!” It’s like a cartoon I used to watch as a young teen, where the songstress gives the human army the will to carry on.

When your concert ends, a young man, my replacement on the guitar, scurries up to you and whispers to you, his grin irreverent and his unusual red eyes sparkling, and you look right at the cameras. “They have declared a cease-fire. We can sing the song of peace.”

Your songs are softer again, full of hope. You make up with Lacus Clyne and have a very big concert with her before she disappears into retirement again. I am in the front row with Yzak, and the fingers of my right hand twitch a little as I remember the melody. He yells at me because the twitching distracts him, of course. He always yells. Later, you marry your soldier-boy even though his face is scarred. People love you even more for that; you may be completely unattainable now, the fantasy of dating you gone as Touch-me-not becomes even more untouchable, but you didn’t throw away your love because he’s no longer pretty. We all admire that. I’m at your wedding, on the groom’s side with Dearka, the only other one of our team to survive besides me and Yzak, and we get drunk and I try to play with the band. It was supposed to be your first song. But my right arm doesn’t move when I want it to, and my left hand has been learning to hold a pen instead, and the fingers no longer remember the fretting.

It’s so awful that I cry and Dearka relents and deletes whatever video he had started to take. Later I blame the alcohol even though we all know better, you and Yzak and Dearka and me. 

You sing songs of love and hope and peace now, and the people love you even more, for being there for them, for suffering with them, for crying with them, and now for being happy with them. I remember when I played the guitar for you, and if my smile is a little bitter when I see your face on the screen, it’s because I wish I could again. It’s because I am only a studio musician who lost his music in the war, and you are the one who sang the song of victory. I am just Athrun, but you… You are Housenka.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know the tense of the fic is strangely past-present. Just roll with it. I did some editing on this version so it should be easier to read, and at this point, any tense switches are left intentionally.
> 
> I made Athrun a classical guitarist because I was thinking, and if he did play an instrument, I think it would be something to show off a little and that he could make complex to play. He seems to like challenging hobbies.
> 
> The Shiho song mentioned, Desert of Time, is a translation of the name of Arisaka Mika's "Toki no Sabaku," which is an amazing song and I highly recommend it to, like, everyone. You don't need to listen to it to understand the fic, though.
> 
> The replacement guitarist mentioned is Shinn. I mention it here because I forgot and had to think very hard about it during editing, LOL~


End file.
